Administrivia: 31 May 2023

I just want you to know I trolled Thor Bjornsson today. He posted a pic of himself on Facebook with four women saying something like “one is not enough” and I posted this:

…right-ass there in his comments with a “Baby brother did it better.”

😎

Thank you. Thank you. I’ll be here all week.

But just until Saturday. And then…

I SIGNED THE LEASE

It’s been a very fucking strange year, and an even stranger hunt for a home, but WE’RE HERE. I made it. I can’t believe it.

There is still the tiniest outside possibility that something could go wrong, and I probably better make note of that before some cosmic force decides I’ve gotten too big for my britches, BUT. I’m (probably misguidedly) hopeful.

The best part is that I’ll be close to work. I’ve been so worried about my car. Now comes the breathing room. At least for the next six months.

Okay. For the next couple weeks it’ll be getting adjusted to all that. Then things should start getting a bit more interesting here at this site. More hope. I do not think it is wholly misplaced. At last.

Administrivia: 26 May 2023

So I’m gonna get all All-About-Admin for a bit, sorry, but there will be Rory pics, so hopefully that will make up for it. And these won’t be new Rory pics, but they will be Rory pics I don’t see in the Rorysphere all that often and, in fact, screenshots I have taken mine ownself. Be that as it may.

I don’t know if I mentioned that my new job was a bit of a ticking time bomb. The first day I was there, they told us that we had an assessment coming up during training and that we had to pass that assessment in order to continue employment. And then they proceeded, over the following three weeks, to throw so much information at us that I didn’t think I was going to make it, honestly. I was sure I was going to fuck up. That feeling persisted until this morning, which was when we had the assessment.

Well

I PASSED

So that’s that sorted. I have a job, and will for the foreseeable future, and it pays decently considering my lack of recent real experience, and it’s got decent benefits.

I still have to sort out the housing thing. I was so sure I had found a place, but the prospective landlady is REALLY WEIRD and acting “off” and, frankly, did the day I went to look at the apartment, too. I don’t know what is going on there but if this is how she acts when there is no lease, I don’t want to have to be on a lease with that going on. I am looking at renting a room for another week tomorrow, and we’ll see how that goes. If it goes well, I’ll be telling the rehousing charity lady I’m no longer interested.

Because at this point, I’m making enough that once I catch up some stuff and they stop charging me the hotel tax, I’ll be able to save up for my own place. Failing a real apartment, there’s ANOTHER extended-stay place that rents like a real apartment, and I’ll just hold out until they have one of the less expensive units available. One way or another I’ll get that housing expense down and then it’s REALLY my ballgame.

So basically this is my mood right now…

[Yes, here come the Rory pics. Thanks for your patience.]

…💙🤍💚

About Rory’s Instagram

Yesterday I was checking in to see if Rory has posted on his Instagram account recently. What typically happens is he goes for weeks and then posts something, and then I don’t see it for like three days. I was trying to get ahead of him this time. I found out there’s a 90% chance I’m getting this apartment and that I may be moving in this coming week, so of course he’ll wait until that’s going on to post again and I’ll miss it for longer, because that’s the way my life works.

Love ya, big man. Mwah.

Anyway. So I was over there looking at his posts again because either he or his wife does cool things with multi-part photos and such and it’s fun to look at, when I notice this discussion in the comments section, and someone who follows me on IG opining that of course the account isn’t him, it’s a hoax.

Look. I’m not 100% discounting the idea of a hoax, because there are some gigantic assholes in the world and they make everything stink. But here’s why I think you’re wrong.

Photos we have not seen of Rory before

If you can show me where Hound’s Lair got that pic of him in front of the waterfall or that other pic of him on Scotland’s west coast before his account posted them, I’ll reconsider this point. I can’t check, because I’m on her shit list. But as far as I can tell, everything he’s posted is original to “his” (assuming a hoax) account. You can’t see his face in the waterfall photo and you can’t see much of it in the Scotland photo, but if you’re familiar enough with his build and posture, you know it’s him. I am. I do.

Rory not having much to say in his posts

His wife may have set up the IG but he’s probably the one posting things. He’s so protective of his privacy that it really couldn’t go any other way. And he’s not in there writing out a bunch of corny platitudes. He might be telling the occasional corny joke, but that is 100% in-character for Rory McCann. Telling his life story on social media? Not so much. Kissing his fans’ asses? Very not so much. (I think he appreciates those of us who are not insane — so jury’s WAY out on what he would think of me — but that’s as far as it goes.) I suspect he got tired of the media making a big deal out of him and getting half of it wrong, so he stopped sharing years ago. I predicted before I knew he had the account that he’d probably do Instagram if he did any social media at all, and I thought that because Instagram is image-based and he doesn’t really have to say anything.

And most of all:

The people following Rory on Instagram

Here’s who I’ve seen there in Rory’s followers so far:

– Rory’s film/TV agent
– Rory’s voice-acting agent
– Rory’s makeup artist, Chloe, from season 4 onward in Game of Thrones
– A band (Future Islands) Rory has met in person

If Rory’s sister Sally-Gay were still on Instagram, she’d be following him too. If she’s there, she is. I don’t know what her account name would be, so I can’t tell. I’m not going to go to the trouble of digging, because it’s like a curse: I find out what her account handle is, and three months later she’s gone. But yes. Count on it. He’s got three very important women in his life, and she’s one of them.

All these people have access to speak to Rory on the phone and ask him if that’s him. If he’d said no, they wouldn’t be following him. Even Chloe, who is cool as hell about answering fans’ questions about Rory if they are not too personal (questions like “Where was this photo taken?”, and she’s contacted me personally to answer that question before), doesn’t follow any of his fan accounts that I’m aware of. She probably searches his tag now and again to see if anything interesting’s going on. If even that at this point, what with him now having an Instagram account.

So anyway, there you go. I wanted to convey that I’m not a blind follower: I have specific reasons for believing this is Rory McCann. If you can look at the evidence I’ve presented and still argue this is a hoax, I can’t help you. You can look forward to feeling like a vindicated genius if it ever turns out you’re right.

I suspect you’ll be waiting a long time.

Administrivia: 20 May 2023

I suppose this is a “still alive” post. (I used to do those.)

I’m in a weird in-between place right now. Those of you who have followed along for ages will recall me having several false starts with obtaining employment. I’m happy to report that, at least from my end, that has not occurred this time. I’m still in training, and I’m a bit intimidated by everything I need to learn, but I like the general idea of the work and I LOVE my workplace. (You would chew your right arm off in envy to see my lunch room. I am not fucking kidding.) The benefits are terrific too. The only potential snag is my assessment this coming week. I have to pass that at an appropriate percentage, and then I have to pass muster in other ways which have (deliberately, I suspect) not been made clear. To add to the trepidation, I found out yesterday I’ve been added to a workgroup with several other people. Some of my classmates got added to workgroups singly. I have this weird idea that if they had been meant to be shitcanned this coming Friday, they wouldn’t have been added somewhere where they had no backup new people to replace them. I could be wrong, but who knows.

But! I’ve been acing my quizzes so far. At least from a learning-the-stuff perspective I guess I’m doing all right. I will just have to hope they think I’ll fit in well.

I also have a possible apartment lined up — and it’s about five minutes from work. AND there are dogs. I’ve been thinking for a while that when I get to a certain point that I want pets again, I wouldn’t mind trialing to see if I could deal with a dog. Maybe help at a shelter, or learn how to foster a pup. I don’t know. But there are two dogs on the property and they like me already (I have never met a dog who blatantly did not like me if we had a chance to be introduced — weird, considering I’m a cat person), so that’s something. The only problem is the organization helping with the rehousing. I won’t go into it here but that’s just been weird all along since February. I’m really hoping they don’t fuck things up for me at the last possible minute. I mean, if they do, too bad for me I guess, but I’m so close to the finish line.

But, if housing goes wrong and job stays OK, I have a backup plan. At some point my finances will catch up to themselves and I’ll be able to get a place.

If both housing and job go wrong, I dunno. We’ll just have to see.

Meanwhile, no more sleeping at rest areas unless everything goes to shit again. I think I’m almost out of the shit. I better not say that too loudly, though.

…..

I heard Beyoncé is on tour in Scotland and it put me in mind of this story. GOD I wish I’d seen that. You people who get to see Rory be a party animal are SO fucking lucky, you just cannot know. Or maybe you do know. I dunno.

It’s also apparently World Whisky Day. One thing I want to do when the dust settles is lay in a supply again. Mine’s all gone. 😢

I thought I had something else to talk about here where the big man was concerned, but maybe not. I’m tired. Not even a “I did all the things” tired, just a “I am so done with this shit” tired, and that can go bone-deep. But I didn’t want to leave the whole month saying nothing. So there you go.

Administrivia: 01 May 2023

Well, it looks like Oor Rory has made it into The Scotsman again. Conga rats, my dude. It’s been a while.

That said, and I’ve said this before in previous incarnations of this blog: the entertainment media are sloppy. I saw that exact six million figure (and is it quid or USD? Gotta be quid, The Scotsman isn’t exactly America-centric) from random tabloid blog bullshit four or fivethree or four years ago, meaning they got the figure from Rory’s time on Game of Thrones. These publications all steal info from one another just like the fangirls steal photos on Instagram. I suppose it’s easier than trying to interview the celebrity. Especially one who spends so much time being remote. But you end up with inaccurate information all over the place. It can be a liability depending on what information’s being passed around.

Or, possibly in Rory’s case, it can be a blessing because the noise of inaccurate information buries the signal of what’s actually going on, which actually would suit our dude’s general purposes these days. Privacy. That’s where it’s at.

So anyway. Fun little bit of fluff, I was surprised he came out ahead of Robert Carlyle. Robert’s slipping. Also, I have never seen Trainspotting in my life, a grievous oversight I must correct one of these days.

Okay. Stuff to do tomorrow. Better go to bed. Zzzzz.

[EDIT] I don’t even know what fucking year it is anymore. I was getting into Rory in ’18, but wasn’t serious about it until the following year. Four years, not five.